A camping shower (also called a solar shower) is true simplicity.
Take a five gallon bag of water, put it in the sun until it heats up, open a valve…and you’ve got a shower wherever you need it.
The water bag is usually black so the sunlight is absorbed and converted to heat more effectively.
These showers are really great for camping and backpacking and you can also put a solar shower by your backyard pool to wash off all that chlorine.
(Check out our pool shower page for more information on this).
A solar shower is also great because it’s such a cheap way to put the power of the sun to work. You should be able to find a version like the Super Solar Shower for twenty or thirty bucks at most outdoor and camping stores.
You’ll probably think that’s a pretty small investment when you’re enjoying a hot shower and feeling a little less groggy after a long night in your tent.
If you want to step things up and buy yourself a little privacy while you shower in the woods, consider a camping shower enclosure. These structures look like some sort of portable outhouse and there are quite a few varieties to choose from.
Prices for these enclosures range from around $40 to over $100 for the sturdier large models.
If you’re going to be taking a shower in an area without any trees to hang your camping shower on, another “extra” you will want to consider is a shower pole with tripod stand. This will ensure that you always have a place to hang your shower to let gravity do its work.
If you don’t think you’ll be getting enough sunshine to take advantage of a solar shower, there are a few other options to consider.
One of these options is using propane to heat your water. You can expect to pay quite a bit more for a propane shower but you will no longer have to rely on the weather’s cooperation for your piping hot shower fix.
Another version of the camping shower features a coil that is heated by your campfire or campstove. As water passes through this coil it is heated up and you have enough water for a hot shower in 10 or 15 minutes.
The third alternative to using the power of the sun for your hot shower is using the power of your automobile.
Vehicle mounted shower kits are mounted permanently under the hood of your car and use a heat exchanger to harness the heat of your vehicle’s coolant. This solution is probably only an option for heavy duty campers and, needless to say, installation is required.
With all of these options available to bring the comforts of home to your campsite, whoever said camping meant you had to “rough it”?
I’ll take a little comfort if it’s all the same to you.